Heretofore, devices have been provided to prevent a small child from opening doors and windows in the home, particularly when the child has slipped away from parental surveillance.
In the field concerning the apparatus, the prior art may be elucidated by the patents U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,889,992, 3,397,001 and the patent application E.P.A. 62,598.
The present applicant has filed E.P.A. 62,598 and U.S. Ser. No. 363,418, filed Mar. 30, 1982, now U.S. Pat. No. 4,432,579, granted Feb. 21, 1984.
In the patent application E.P.A. 62,589, the conditions to be met were the following:
(a) the apparatus must engage automatically at closing of the door or window leaf to avoid forgetting;
(b) it should be possible to mount the apparatus on swinging and sliding doors, on french and sash windows;
(c) the disengagement of the apparatus, in order to open the door or window should be very difficult or impossible for a child; and
(d) for communicating doors, the disengagement should be possible from either side of the door.
The device described in the patent application E.P.A. 62,589, and U.S. Pat. No. 4,432,574 filled these conditions, whereas those described in the other patents cited did not.
In E.P.A. 62,589, there was described a device in which the first part is composed of two horns defining together two rigid bearing surfaces, with a groove in between the horns, and the second part being formed by a base mounted on the door frame (or leaf), a flexible arm integral with the base and a catch tenon or catch piece integral with the free end of the flexible arm, and at closing, the arm lodges automatically in the groove and, at opening, the catch tenon catches on to one of the bearing surfaces of the first part.
One principal object of the present invention consists of providing for a device of the type mentioned above but removable from the respective leaf or frame in such a way that no young child could remove same.
Another object of the invention consists of providing for an apparatus as mentioned above, again on the first part, other means rendering the separation of the two pieces still more difficult, which would permit, for example, in the case of an application to a sash window, leaving it within the reach of children.
Another object of the invention consists of providing a variant of the part with two horns.
The characteristics of the above mentioned invention, as well as others, will become more apparent by the reading of following description or examples of realization, the said description having been done in relation to the adjoining drawings.